Why return-to-office mandates fail::The question over whether to allow employees to work from home has been settled. Here’s the new normal.
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We don’t have the data, says the company that tracks their employees and customers relentlessly.
The data doesn’t say what we want it to so we’re ignoring it.
To be fair many companies who said you have to return to work did this as they knew they had to do lay offs. It is cheaper if people just leave and you don’t have to pay a severance pay.
And more often than not, the people that left were the higher performing employees. Penny-wise, pound-foolish.
Sounds like a problem for 4 quarters from now, today we give out executive bonuses and cash out on the stock price increase!
Please don’t think you have to be fair over that kind of behaviour
Let me solve this apparently unsolvable mystery for them. You spent the last 40 years making offices soul crushing hellscapes that are grounds for psychological warfare while helping contribute to increasing commutes. People had Stockholm syndrome for a bit then they got shown a better way and they’d rather not give up a large part of their day to be tormented in a place they they don’t need to be to do their job.
So when you try to force it the large majority are fighting back and you’re surprised? No ping pong, pool, mandatory fun, free drinks don’t offset the bullshit that is modern office design in-fact a lot of us would rather you keep all those give us a little padding in the ol paycheck and I can get my own soda and ping pong table
Besides: Fuck modern office design. Even in my company in Austria, other departments often have cushy 2-3 employee offices, plenty of space, really nice.
What do software developers get? Massive rooms with 13 people inside and no seperators for “collaboration”. But while you’re in online meeting A and your colleague is in online meeting B you can’t even focus on your own thoughts.
Overcrowding is the biggest issue I have with working at office. Too many people sharing a space. It feels claustrophobic and lack privacy
Mandatory fun was always my least favorite god damn part. It isn’t fun if you have to force me to have fun.
My company took a different approach. It wasn’t mandatory but if a group of people wanted to get together and do something once a week, They would pay for dinner for however many people showed up and they had free soft drinks and beer. We’ve had board games, d&d, crafting, we even had a bar night where company would pick up the first drink.
I honestly miss all that terribly, but not more than is offset by not having to commute 30 min each way every day.
LOL I’ve always said that beer waffle Tuesday and a Foosball table aren’t worth working with entitled idiots.
People will choose a workplace in which they have greater control, over one with nicer accommodations.
I quit my job because my boss demanded RTO. They asked me to come back after they rescinded the RTO.
Did you?
No, I already had a new job that was founded on remote.
because nobody wants to return to the office.
there. mystery solved, Sherlock.
EDIT: WRT the article: because the reasons given are always bullshit unsupported by fact.
If people can talk without being tracked they might unionize.
There’s such a disconnect between the discussion on line about this and my experience in the real world.
I work in tech and it’s probably at least partially situational, but everyone in my office that I talk to about this agrees that working in office is more productive. Everyone wants the flexibility to work from home, and my company is still hybrid, but it’s universally agreed that the office is better. Granted I know some people left after we went hybrid from full wfh, and I’m sure some of those who left would be in disagreement.
But for instance, I’m a senior engineer and the juniors often ask for help from me multiple times during the day…if we’re both in the office. If one or both of us is home, I rarely hear from them. I don’t see how this isn’t a clear indication of lost productivity and learning from them.
But when you see this discussion online, the people arguing that WFH is just as good or better drown out the other voices.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that commuting sucks and for the employees who is better, and I hope it stays that way. But I struggle to believe that from a business productivity perspective it’s better to be fully remote.
So the people who stayed at your company after WFH was taken away are the ones that think the office is better.
Definitely an engineer.
I explicitly pointed that out. I also gave a good reason why. But my experience in talking about this also extends beyond just people I work with.
But I would also like to point out that at least 80% of our team stayed on after hybrid was announced.
I agree that in office can be more productive. Otherside of the coin, many places aren’t a single monolithic office or even campus. These giant tech companies forcing RTO results in people driving into an office to get the same experience as at home. (Aka on zoom calls all day)
I dunno, you really come across as an engineer who doesn’t like to use Zoom or Teams. Yes it can be easy to point at a piece of paper in front of someone, but there’s nothing to stop you from getting on a call a couple of times a day for a few minutes each.
I was 100% WFH for about a decade before the pandemic. I’m perfectly fine with both teams and zoom. When I finally got my previous company on board for webex (the company was split in 2 small locations, and then me WFH), and then eventually a move to teams, it was great. I like in person meetings better, for sure, but I’ve long been very comfortable using video meetings.
And while I agree there is nothing actually stopping people from jumping on zoom, my experience is that there is a lot more psychological friction because it doesn’t happen nearly as much as it does when we are in the same physical space. And this doesn’t even touch on all the times I’m talking to someone else about something, and another person overhears me and either has a similar question or something to add. And it almost reads as if you are saying I should schedule meetings with these people to meet a couple of times a day, but that would be even more painful.
People on my team have a question, I start up Zoom and we chat for 5 minutes. I have a question for my boss that’s too big for Slack? Well we’ll just Zoom for a few minutes.
You definitely don’t want an ad hoc ticketing system, but nothing wrong with ad hoc meetings, especially if you’re trying to capture the random encounters that occur in the office.
But this is my point. . .when I’m in the office they’ll just turn around and ask me, on average, close to 3 questions a day. If it averages below 3 questions per week when one or both of us is WFH, I wouldn’t be surprised.
I’m not saying that there is no way to make it happen, but that it simply doesn’t happen. (Although I will say the ad hoc jump-in is something that can’t happen over video chat. . .unless everyone is always in the room, which is even worse than working in an office lol) I can’t explain why, but the barrier to initiating a conversation is much higher when it’s not just “turn around and ask” and instead “send a message.”
